The Capture
by DenOtroligaGudensDildo
Summary: Just a fan fiction I wrote. Jake's been captured by the Yeerks. Click to find out more. It's my first story, so please be gentle :S
1. Chapter 1 Heat

**Chapter One**

**Heat**

"_Don't waste my motherfucking time." – _Al Pacino_, Heat _(1995)

The heat was killing me. Sweat ran down my body from every pore, making my growing fur sticky, drops of salty water clouding my vision as I ran. Morphing while running required a lot of concentration. If you took your mind of running for just a second, you'd fall down, flat on your face, and be roasted by Dracon fire. If you took your mind of morphing you were just a hideous freak, a revolting cross between a huge Siberian tiger and a gangly teenager. So I did my best to stay focused, even as the heat became unbearable. My heart pounded like crazy, still absorbing the shock of the attack. In my head echoed the questions.

Why? How? _How?_

To think that less than 30 seconds ago, I had been in bed, asleep, Homer scratching himself with his foot behind his ear at the edge of my bed. Now Homer was nothing but a pile of smoking fur. My room was a smoking crater. I had been lucky to survive in the shower of Dracon fire. The pain stung in the scorched stump that had once been my right arm.

You're probably thinking right now, "_That's pretty shitty Jake, doesn't it feel horrible to think that you'll never be able to jack off again?_" Well, my life is currently so insane that a burnt-off limb is just a minor nuisance. See, there's this little thing called morphing. It gives me the power to change into animals. Literally, _become _ other animals. Don't ask me how it works. Ax could explain it to you, if you have two hours to kill.

Anyway, this ability completely transforms my human DNA into that of an animal. When I morph back to human, my arm will be there again. DNA has nothing to do with severed limbs.

Running clumsily through the pizza oven that was once my home, sprouting new limbs, a tiger's paw where my arm had been, and a tail, there was simply no time to figure out why the Yeerks were scorching a middle class home in the middle of an American suburbia. When you're in the heated rush of panic, you don't think. You react out of instinct. Battle morph. Tiger. Claws. Teeth. Muscle. I needed to kick ass. Not that a tiger has anything on a Blade Ship's Dracon fire.

I heard screams and shouts from upstairs. My parents were awake. Mom sounded hysterical. Dad mainly sounded pissed off. Breakfast in bed definitely beats having half the floor in your bedroom burst into flames.

Tom! Was Tom home? Couldn't be. The Yeerks wouldn't attack a home where one of their top gun Yeerks' host lived.

Would they?

I had only one thing on my mind: to get out of the house. I was too scared to call for help. The hot air welled into my eyes, my mouth, muting me. I couldn't scream at my parents to get out of here. All I could do was run.

The kitchen. I'd take the kitchen door, hide beneath the hedges, morph something small. Hide until the Yeerks decided they'd killed Jake, the Might Yeerk killer. I was completely tiger now. The dark of the night was a summer day to my eyes. I could see every detail of the darkened kitchen, hear the humming of the fridge and the near-unhearable sound of a housefly grooming its legs under the table. My tiger claws slipped across the polished floor.

The sky exploded into a shower of blinding light. The unmistakeable sound of Dracon fire filled my sensitive ears, blocking out everything else. Scorched pieces of the roof fell around me. Debris singed my striped fur. I roared in pain and anger. The tiger didn't like getting fucked with.

The kitchen, furniture being licked by flames, had turned into a planetarium. Above me was the night sky, the full moon glaring down on me, a shadow looming in the dark. A Bug Fighter.

The scene was almost too complete, too perfect. Too theatralic. Maybe I was dreaming.

No such luck.

I threw myself at the kitchen door. Locked!

My parents had been so eager to protect expensive belongings, they'd accidentally written off their own son.

_Tseeew!_

I felt the fire before I heard it. It was pain beyond what anyone could imagine. My vision, my strong tiger vision, was blurred. I couldn't see. Couldn't feel. My nerves exploded. My body was on fire. Then… just gone. Dissolved by the heat of the Dracon fire.

Somehow I was still alive. I lay there on the kitchen floor, observing the scene of destruction through tired, running eyes. The kitchen table was in pieces. Smoking debris lay across the floor like the chocolate chips in cookies. The fridge had burst open, food, milk and vegetables were thrown across the floor. The walls were scroched. I could see what was left of me if I turned my head in a way that made my neck crack. If I was human, I'd gasp. The tiger that I was let out an animal's moan of pain and terror.

There was nothing left of me. I was only there from the chest up. Somehow my heart was still pounding. The tiger is a tough animal. But this was too much for even the biggest cat on earth to take. Blood was soaking the floor from the stump that was my top half. My bottom half was split into individual atoms floating through the air. My guts were half-burned, shrunken little things, like buns left too long in the oven, leaking out of me. It was a sight no one should have to see: your inner organs slipping out of your body.

And troughout all this pain and fear, I was still alive, one half of me, every cell in my body screaming for me to turn back into human. But I couldn't. Fatigue was the only thing I could feel. I couldn't form an image of my old self in my mind. It was a blurred, creepy mix of tiger, gorilla, grizzly bear, wolf and hawk.

Marco. Rachel. Cassie. Tobias.

The scorching heat of the Dracon had disappeared. The soothing, cool winds of the summer night swept across my singed fur. I couldn't hear the humming of the Bug Fighter anymore. From outside that tricky kitchen door, I heard someone. Something. Please be Cassie. Please be an Animorph. Please save me.

Now, on the small staircase outside the kitchen door, a clopping. A familiar clopping.

Thank God. It was Ax. Ax would save me. He'd know what to do.

Again, no such luck.

There was the crack of a whip and the door was split in two. The strange shape of an Andalite stepped in, half-human, half-deer, completely bizarre.

It wasn't Ax.

Animorph scum!>

So they finally figured it out.

Hi, Visser>, I murmured dumbly, too tired to think, too tired to do anything but accept what was going to happen, no matter how bad it was. It still couldn't be any worse than being half a tiger on a kitchen floor.

Not a muscle in my body moved. My heart pounded slower…slower…

There was a sharp sting and adrenaline pumped through my body. I felt alive again. Shit.

I looked up. The Visser's tail blade was buried, deep in the scorched flesh that marked the end of my body. It was pain beyond pain. Terror beyond terror. I just couldn't take it. How'd we come to this? How could this happen?

Two, maybe three minutes ago, I'd been asleep in my bed. Homer had been scratching his ear at my feet. It had been a dark and quiet night. I had been whole.

(Demorph, Jake.)

Cassie?

(Demorph, Animorph scum!)

Oh. Not Cassie.

I turned a tiger's eye upwards. Looked into that hateful, sneering Andalite face. I couldn't believe he'd won. Visser Three had won. It was impossible.

I'd never give him the others. Never.

(Demorph to human.)

The tip of the blade moved further into my flesh.

(I know this hurts.)


	2. Chapter 2 Coffee

**Chapter Two**

**Coffee**

"_Garcon! Coffee!" – _Tim Roth, _Pulp Fiction _(1994)

I never did like coffee very much. But hey, I was 15. I was an adult. I needed to act like one. So I used lots and lots of sugar. Basically the coffee I drank was 70 sugar, 30 coffee. My brother calls me The Fantastic Insulin Woman. He thinks he's so funny.

"How's the coffee? Good? Did you like your cake?"

This Jake guy, he was kinda cute. Weird, but cute. He had one of those uncool haircuts that I totally liked. He dressed good. The only problem was that he talked a little too much. I guess he was nervous. It was, like, our first date ever.

"I can't believe there's so little people here. I mean, it's like the place received a bomb threat. I never understood why so many people go to Starbucks for their coffee. This place blows Starbucks out of the water."

This was, like, our second conversation ever, and he talked about a coffee company. We'd met yesterday. He'd come up to me in the school cafeteria during lunch. Smiling. Said he'd seen me at gymnastics. He said he thought I was "kinda cute". Said he'd wanted to go out with me sometime. I suggested the coffee shop. Don't know why. Like I said, I've never liked coffee. It was just something I said.

"So, uh, what do you do? I mean, not what to you do for a living, I know you go to school and stuff, but I mean, what do you do in your free time?"

I told him I liked to watch movies. Romantic ones. Painting. Riding. Shopping. I mean, that's like, the usual stuff, right? That's what teenagers do.

"So how about you, do you, like, play football or something?" I asked.

"I used to play basket. I ran for the school team once, didn't make it. So now I'm doing charity work for this organization, The Sharing. Ever heard of it?"

"I think so. They feed the homeless, right? And gather money to save rare animals?"

"Yes, but The Sharing is way more than that. We want to make the world a better place, you know? But we need help. We need as many members as possible. Two heads think better than one."

He had this weird look in his eyes when he talked about The Sharing. Maybe I was just imagining it. I wanted to change the subject.

"So, uh, how long have you gone to -------- High? I don't think I've seen you very often."

"I just moved into town. Our last home was destroyed in a fire, so my dad figured we should start over, get a new place, you know."

"Do you get to see your old friends much?"

"Well, you know, we talk once in a while. We call each other. Sometimes we hang out if my dad gets a business assignment in our old city."

We sat there, chatting for at least an hour. We discussed what concerts we didn't have the money to attend. We talked about which celebrity was in the closet. We discussed what we wanted to do with our lives when we grew up. It was nice. Nice talking to someone who didn't think about sex all the time. And like I said, this Jake guy was kinda cute.

Then the, like, weirdest thing of my whole life happened. Jake was just about to say what his brother, Tom, did, when his face was contorted by spasms. His jaw hung loose, saliva slowly running down his chin. Gross.

Jake's dark eyes twitched. He blinked once, twice. His arm flung up on the table.

"Jake?"

Maybe he was, like, epileptic? Oh my god. I had no idea what to do. Hadn't our teacher told us something about epileptic seizures? You were supposed to pur something in the victim's mouth so he didn't swallow his tongue… or was that wrong? I couldn't remember. Oh my God!

Jake was slipping now, slowly sliding down his chair. He shrunk in his seat, looking more and more like a dwarf. Then, as quickly as it'd started, his seizure stopped. His eyes stopped twitching. His stare was clear and focused. His mouth closed. He pulled himself up in his chair and reached for a napkin to wipe away the drool from his face.

I just stared dumbly at him. I'd spilled some coffee on my "_I'm blond, what's your excuse_" T-shirt, but I didn't care. I didn't know what to say.

"Are you alright?", was the only thing I could think of. Lame, I know. Even I could tell he wasn't alright.

"I'm fine-" Jake started saying.

Then his left hand flew up and he slapped himself across the nose. It was scary. One second, he was, like, totally in control. The next, he was insane!

He rose from his chair, breathing quickly. It was easy to see that he was scared. His face pale, sweat running down his zit-less forehead.

He tried to walk away, but his left leg wouldn't move. His hands were tightly clutched into fists. He fell hard on his face, his arms unwilling to help him. There was a gross cracking sound as his nose smashed against the floor. Blood. Oh my God!

"Jake! Jake! What's the matter with you!" I shouted, aware that I was making a scene, indifferent. There was something seriously wrong with this guy.

"I'm f-", Jake tried to repeat. Then an arm flew up and he punched himself in the face. Twice. Blood squirted from his crushed nose. I stared in horror, unable to move from my seat. It was the ultimate horrible car accident sequence. I couldn't do anything, and I couldn't look away. Jake was like two totally different persons, fighting over the same body. Totally psycho.

He groaned, then seemed to gain control of himself again. He clutched a table and pulled himself to his knees. Then to his feet. He spat something onto the floor in a stream of dark red blood. It was a tooth.

I gasped.

"It happens sometimes," he slurred. "It happens. But it's cool. I'm fine now. I'm cool."

He took another napkin and wiped some of the blood from his face. His nose ran with a disgusting mix of mucus and blood. His well-ironed shirt was a mess. Dark stains all across it. He'd totally ruined his good looks. His hair was a mess.

"Are you sure you're alright?" I asked lamely.

"Yeah. It's totally cool now. No problem." He ran the hand he'd just punched himself with through his brown hair, greasing it with blood.

There were only three people in the entire cafeteria. Me, Jake and the owner, Mr. Bashki. He was passive. He didn't stare in horror, didn't scream, didn't even look surprised. He just looked at Jake from under his dark eyebrows. It was a look full of hate and disgust. Somehow he was scarier than Jake's maimed looks. The hate in Mr. Bashki's eyes wasn't human.

I finally got up from my seat, not sure what to do. What if Jake had another attack? Another case of… whatever-it-was? I put my hands on his shoulders.

"Should you take, like, some medicine or something?" I asked worriedly.

"No. It's nothing. It just happens sometimes. It's… it's hard to explain. A syndrome," he muttered. His mind was somewhere else. He wanted to get out of here.

"I'll see you tomorrow in school."

He left, leaving a steady trail of bloody footprints behind him, before I could say anything else. This had by far been the weirdest date of my life.

I never did see him the next day. He was gone. Swept off the face of the earth. Gone with the wind. Jake, The Invisible Man. The ghost that haunted me in my subconscious. Jake, my Weirdest Date Ever.

But I did see Mr. Bashki following Jake out the door. I just barely saw him flash something before he put it in the pocket of his coat.

It was a confusing day. I went home, ate some cookies to calm down. Sat down with my two-year old little brother to watch Barney.

My name is Shelley.


	3. Chapter 3 Death

**Chapter Three**

**Death**

"_I am Death." _– Death, _The Seventh Seal _(1957)

(To your feet, you worthless excuse for a Yeerk!)

The Visser had never been known for his way with people.

That was a joke, by the way. A human joke. I've lived in the mind of my human host so long I've started making jokes. Isn't that pathetic? Part of my host, my body, my slave's personality, had actually rubbed off on me. Me being Demur-six-six-four. A Yeerk. I assume you know what I am.

I was in trouble.

(Demur-six-six-four, am I correct?) the Visser sneered.

I knew better than to lie to a Yeerk of Visser Three's rank. He was the sixteenth most powerful Yeerk in the universe. He had the host body of an Andalite. He was also an asshole.

"Yes, Visser. I am Demur-six-six-four of the Sulp Niar pool."

(I know that, you idiot! Come with me!)

We were in the Yeerk pool located underneath the human city known as . Yeerks were going through the usual process. Their hosts dumped them into the pool, were held by the guards, and put in cages until their re-infestation. It was a beautiful system. Every Yeerk, every Hork-bajir, every Taxxoon and human was a vital cog in the machinery. We were an ant colony. We did as commanded. It was as impossible for a lowly Yeerk to disobey a Visser as it was for an ant to disobey its queen. Yeerks who opposed the system were eliminated. Smarter Yeerks who disliked the system never brought it up. We all fought to survive in our little ant colony. All waiting for an enemy bug to kill whoever had the rank just above them. All wanting to rise higher, gain more power, doing their best to keep the colony running so they could get treats. All of them yearning to get recognized, to be a hero, all without displeasing the Visser. The ant queen. Displeasing the Visser meant death, in most cases. Sometimes, death by starvation. Or torture. I had a lot of choices.

The Visser's Hork-bajir guards escorted me into a quiet room without windows. The roaring, buzzing sound of activity that filled the Yeerk pool, the disgusting clucking sound of the pool itself, the screaming and wailing of the temporarily free hosts, the laughter of the filthy lowlifes that were voluntary hosts, all of it was cut off. All I could hear was silence. It was infinitely more uncomfortable than the alarm from outside the room.

The Visser motioned for me to sit down. There was only one chair in the room. No furniture besides a small, wooden table. Hork-bajir and Andalites are not born to sit down.

The walls, ceiling and floor were gray concrete. This room was built for one purpose: Torture. I felt my human host sweating. My emotions, projecting onto the body I was controlling. My host, Bashki, was not afraid. He wasn't stupid, either. He knew he'd die. And he was happy with it. He had nothing to lose, not anymore.

But I had.

For a long time, no one spoke. The Visser looked straight into my eyes with his piercing, green Andalite eyes. The second pair of eyes, the ones positioned on stalks on top of his head, scanned the room, looking through every brightly-lit corner for what could be an Animorph in disguise. There were still five of them, somewhere. Planning their next scheme. It was ridiculous how much damage these six renegades, these six _human kids_, had caused us.

Finally, the Visser spoke. Thought-spoke, that is.

(Demur-six-six-four of the Sulp Niar pool.)

He eyes my face, looking for a reaction. Taunting me. He wanted to know if I was afraid. If whatever suspicions he had about me were true. I nodded yes, that's me.

(Do you recognize the name Jake Berenson?)

"Yes."

(Could you tell me a little about him? I'm curious.)

I kept my facial features controlled, focused, casual. Don't reveal anything. Show no emotion. Be a true Yeerk. Play the part.

"Jake Berenson is the only found and infested member of the human guerilla group on earth known as Animorphs. He is one of six humans with the ability to morph. It is believed Elfangor the Beast presented them with this power. Jake Berenson was revealed to be an Animorph by his brother, Tom Berenson. Tom overheard him talking in his sleep about the Animorphs. Tom Berenson's Yeerk called for Yeerk support and you, Visser, led a surprise attack against Jake Berenson's house on the night of July the 17th, 1997. He was infested on July the 18th, 1997, 2:31 in the morning. You wanted to use him to track down the rest of the Animorphs."

I paused. The Visser's face was blank. He wanted to hear more. I continued.

"Jake Berenson suffered from amnesia brought on by severe shock. His Yeerk, Amesh-nine-nine-two, couldn't get any information from him. Jake Berenson suffered from personality changes after his shock."

The Visser's hard stare seemed to press its way through me like a primitive human weapon's bullets. I held a firm grim on my host to make sure my expression was blank and unrevealing.

(Is that all you know about Jake Berenson?)

"Yes, Visser."

The Visser's eyes drifted away, not focusing at anything special. He was thought-speaking to someone outside the room. I nervously tried to keep my right foot from bouncing up and down (an oddity of the humans).

(Demur-six-six-four, there is someone I would like you to meet.)

The door opened, letting in a storm of sounds and smells. A young human girl, shoulder-length blond hair, with a bright blue T-shirt and a short skirt entered. Controller, of course. Her face did not have the lively look of a human teenager. It was the cynical stare of a Yeerk.

The "girl" stood next to the Visser, quietly.

(Demur, this is Yshtra-eight-five-six, also from the Sulp Niar pool. You might recognize each other), the Visser said mockingly. (Yshtra's host is named Shelley. Why don't _you_ tell us what you know about Jake Berenson, Shelley?)

There was a slight twitch, not even as long as a second, but it was there, rippling across the pretty face of the girl. I knew what it meant: Yshtra-eight-five-six had let go of Shelley's body. Judging by Shelley's lack of screaming and hysterics, she was a voluntary controller. A lowlife.

"I dated him, once. He was kinda cute. Then one day, he just disappeared. He was just gone. Never saw him again."

(Were you aware that Jake Berenson has been missing for more than a year, Demur-six-six-four of the Sulp Niar pool), the Visser mocked. (Did it _cross your mind_ for a second? Or were you totally oblivious to the fact that what might have been our most important, most powerful host body, was eliminated by one of our own? That he died in some back alley, pumped full of _derithium_?)

There was no need to fake it anymore. The Visser knew who had killed Jake Berenson. So did I.

"How was I supposed to know?" I shouted. "Visser, I was not informed of Jake Berenson's appearance! You had specifically given orders to all Yeerks during the latest meeting of The Sharing to eliminate, by use of _derithium, _any host that was strong enough to take control of its Yeerk. To reduce trouble. To avoid suspicion. How was I supposed to know this was Jake Berenson? How could I know this was _the_ captured Animorph, and not some random kid who caused trouble for its Yeerk?"

(Save your breath, you waste. The penalty for killing off our sole source of information, our only chance of finding the Animorphs, is death.)

"There's no such rule!"

(I just made one up.)

I swallowed. Breathed heavily. My host body out of control. I knew there was no stopping the Visser. The Thirteen would never find out that he'd broken the rules. No Yeerk would have the balls to tell a superior that the Visser had unlawfully murdered one of his own for the sole reason that he was pissed off. Because telling on the Visser meant death.

"How am I to die?" I asked. Whimpering pathetically. Drenched in my human body's sweat. My host laughing at my fear from his tiny corner in our mind.

(You will die by Kandrona starvation. Immediately.)

The panic surging through me was more than I could take. I just wanted out. I headed for the exit, i.e. Mr. Bashki's ear. I let go of all nerve endings. My hearing disappeared. Then I stopped feeling my legs. My arms went out of my control. I lost the ability to talk.

Then, just before I lost my eyesight, I saw something, something that created just a tiny shred of hope in my mind. Something was growing inside the Visser's head. Something that made his skin bulge. And it wasn't a tumor.


End file.
